I hate to be a pain in the printer port here, but I'm on a deadline and I'd really prefer not to have to need an extension.

I haven't installed windows 98 from floppies before, but what I do with a CD

1D:
2cd win98
3format c: /q
4mkdir c:\win98
5copy *.* c:\win98
6c:
7cd win98
8setup

You can try copying all of the files from the floppies into a directory and running the setup command from there. Alternatively, you can pull the hard drive from that computer and put it in a desktop, then copy the win98 folder from the install disk on to the drive (make sure it is formatted as fat32). Then drop to DOS when booting, and run setup from there.

What he said.

Your problem is related to the so-called phantom floppy that DOS provides in order to allow stuff like "copy a:\*.* b:\" on systems with only one floppy drive. It will then ask for B: and swap drive letters temporarily.

Now it's not clear why it even tries to access B: Either it's not seeing the hard disk and wants to install on B:, or the BIOS settings are odd. How did you boot the system?

Actually... here's what worked... and oh boy is it a doozy of a jerry-rig.

This assumes you have MY HARDWARE, configured EXACTLY THE SAME WAY. That is, you have a mechanical hard drive (probably a CF Microdrive in an adapter, or an iPod-style 1.8-inch platter drive, in some variant of a Clientron U800-based thin client, with FreeDOS installed on the drive using RMPrepUSB and a USB CD drive at D:\. Your RAM is 512MB DDR2. You should also get a PS/2 splitter and use that with your keyboard and mouse, because Win98SE does NOT like USB HID peripherals... if you have a USB mouse, you will be TAB+ARROWS+ENTER'ing through setup and that just suuuuuuuuucks.

First, you need a Win98SE ISO. I got mine from the WinWorldPC website.
Unpack the ISO somehow and get it (somehow) onto your hard drive. ALL OF IT. I put mine in the C:\98FLAT directory because that's what the helpfile said.

Navigate to C:\98FLAT\TOOLS\OLDMSDOS and run the EXT command. It will ask you for a source. Feed it C:\98FLAT\WIN98. It will ask for a filename pattern. Feed it *.* (extract eeeeeeeeeeeeeeverything). It will ask for a destination. Feed it C:\98FLAT.

This will take approximately THIRTY HOURS (I wish I were exaggerating!) on this hardware. DO NOT WAIT THROUGH THE NIGHT. Go to bed you schmuck 😜 you'll feel better if you do! (Oh. and put a fan on the thing if you want to avoid it smelling like melty plastic the next morning.)

Once it's FINALLY done,,.

COPY C:\98FLAT\SUBST.EXE C:\SUBST.EXE
MKDIR OLDMSDOS

Now go get an MS-DOS 6.22 boot floppy and (however you can/want) dump its ENTIRE CONTENTS into C:\OLDMSDOS. Then...

SUBST B: C:\OLDMSDOS
SUBST A: C:\WIN98FLAT
D:
SETUP /ie /is /nr /nm

Setup will moan like heck that you're cheating and using SUBST. Hit ESC and it will shut up.

ONE FINAL REQUEST (IF I MAY) -- Does ANYONE have a working 98SE-compatible driver for the i945GSE chipset? The graphics on this thing are being PAINFULLY stupid and I can't seem to explain to the dang thing that the INF file it needs is RIGHT FREAKING THERE because it's technically a Win2k file. ARGH.

To repeat myself, sort of -- Win98SE is now stuck in what amounts to CGA emulation mode -- 640x480, 16 colors. ACK. This is because it wants graphics drivers and I don't have the right ones. The chipset in this client is an i945GSE. Does ANYONE have ANYTHING that will at least get me 800x600 at 256 colors...? XGA at 16bit color would be nice but not strictly speaking required.

You are unlikely to get integrated graphics working in windows 98 on a core2duo chipset. You will need to add a graphics card if you want to do better.

Just wanted to add a note regarding the initial problem in this post. I've always fixed the problem by just using the /ie switch for the setup. No need to create a virtual floppy drive or anything. This tell setup not to create the startup disk and therefor it does not try to read from a floppy drive.

As for the graphics problem you could try this:

https://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbe9x.htm

No idea if it is any good.

starhawk wrote:

To repeat myself, sort of -- Win98SE is now stuck in what amounts to CGA emulation mode -- 640x480, 16 colors. ACK.
This is because it wants graphics drivers and I don't have the right ones. The chipset in this client is an i945GSE.
Does ANYONE have ANYTHING that will at least get me 800x600 at 256 colors...? XGA at 16bit color would be nice but not strictly speaking required.

Well, you could try UniVBE for Win9x. It's rather slow, but should work.
https://bearwindows.zcm.com.au/vbe9x.htm

Edit: lost77 was faster. 😊

So far no luck. I'm gonna email the WinVBE guy tomorrow.

It would have been much easier to just let it run with Windows XP and install 98 in VirtualBox. While the N270 has no virtualisation technology, it would still be enough for 98 and some old promo game.

Yeah, that's not how I roll...

I ran the diagnostics and sent the email. I hope he replies with something helpful, even though that log he will be wanting, won't generate, because the driver dies before it even gets THAT far...

WinVBE Guy replied! He gave me a driver, some sort of "SNAP" thing by a SciTech company I've never heard of. So, trying that today...

Well that didn't work out too good 🙁

For some reason, with all these drivers, Windows is claiming that there is another "primary display adapter" but it hasn't detected this device. There's only one entry under Display Adapters and it won't find any others. Very odd.

Decided to take the nuclear pill. I'm reinstalling.

I'm /still/ reinstalling.

Gee, Redmond, couldn't you have at least housetrained this thing before you released it?

I miss my C64. Commodores were simple and made sense.This thing reminds me of a guy I knew in middle school named Kenny. Kenny was argumentative and troublesome, because Kenny liked the idea of that. Kenny liked to fight and bully and beat up people. I found out from a distant relative of his, sadly, a few years ago that Kenny had been killed in a fight in IIRC the early 2010s. Apparently he took on a bit more than he could handle. FWIW, although there were a lot of things I wished on him, that was not one of them. I'm too nice for that.

RIP Kenny. At least you died doing what you loved.

Now if only I could make this Win98SE installer behave Not Like Kenny.

starhawk wrote:

Yeah, that's not how I roll...

Well, you can do it your way or you can get laid... It's up to you 😉

Being laid was never a possibility. Strictly speaking I'm being a bit improper in doing all of this, and so is she for accepting it, but we do have established boundaries and we both know what they are. See, I iive in a small apartment complex and she's the office person.

For the record, if I managed to deprive the complex of her in any way, including romantically, I'd feel bad about it -- she's an excellent manager. Her grandmother used to manage this complex (and live in my apartment, coincidentally) and the management co actually asked her (the granddaughter) to come in after a string of useless idiots.

So here's the wrapup. I delivered the computer yesterday, more-or-less as planned. The CD drive works. The graphics work. The sound... maybe works in DOS. I didn't have time to properly test it... it's a VIA 1708B chip (ugh) which doesn't seem to have drivers going back that far. Win2k yes, 98/98SE no.

But she was thrilled to have the setup and should have plenty of fun with it. I threw some old DOS games I had on there as well.

So there we have it... I'd love to stick around but most of my computer work these days is on modern gear, or stuff that's actually too old for this forum -- Commodore stuff, basically -- so there's really not much point. I want to say that I appreciate all of everyone's help, and that I hope I'll be back someday, maybe with something to contribute instead of just taking up all ya'll's time.

See you folks, well, out there... 😀 you all take care, y'hear?

starhawk wrote:

More annoyingly, on this particular version of setup, I can't make the /nf switch work, which, per ComputerHope, is supposed to disable that misfeature. IT GETS IGNORED.

I've spent HOURS Googling this nonsense and gotten absolutely nothing and nowhere. Help me, Vogons[dot]org Community, you're my only (remaining) hope...

I am sure that the windows setup accepts commands using - and not /

Try using "setup -nf"